For the first time, China records no new local cases

nBEIJING: China on Thursday reported no new domestic transmission of the coronavirus since the outbreak started, marking a turning point in the country’s fight against the pandemic that first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

China’s national health commission (NHC) reported 34 new cases - all were detected among arrivals from overseas.

Eight new deaths were also reported in the mainland over the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll past 3,240. The number of infections is nearly 82,000.

There could be more instances of domestic infections, but the fact that the number of new infections has been reduced from thousands per day to zero in a few weeks’ time could be attributable to a series of drastic measures that the Chinese government took since late January.

“No new infections were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, marking a notable first in the city’s months-long battle with the microscopic foe,” official news agency Xinhua said in a report on Thursday.

“With no new cases in Wuhan, the Chinese mainland on Wednesday reduced the increase in domestic transmissions to zero. The country now faces a greater threat of infections imported from overseas,” the report said.

Previously, the central Chinese province of Hubei had reported single-digit increases of new infections, all of which were from Wuhan, for a week in a row since last Wednesday.

A month ago, the figure was several thousand cases a day, with hundreds of deaths were being reported.

China’s imported coronavirus cases have been more than local transmissions for several days now as infected travellers passed through major transport hubs in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Of the 34 newly diagnosed imported cases, 21 were reported in Beijing, nine in the southern province of Guangdong, two in Shanghai, one in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, and one in Zhejiang in eastern China.

CHINA TO DEPORT OZ WOMAN FOR VIOLATION

An Australian-chinese woman is being deported for breaking quarantine rules in Beijing, local media reported on Thursday.

Identified as Liang, the woman is said to have flouted home quarantine rules earlier this week after returning from abroad and going out jogging without wearing a mask.

According to China Daily newspaper, clips shared on Weibo show the woman ignoring police officers’ directives to go home after being caught outside without a mask.

Liang also lost her job at the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer after the viral videos showed her confronting Beijing police while breaking home quarantine.